


when the straight road splayed

by pyrrhlc



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Barricade Day, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, Trans Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-03-06 01:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: He ignores the voice, because logically there shouldn’t be any people round here anyway. It’s toxic, a mess of blood and mud and other people’s vices. They are bodies here, and here he is, stealing from them. Grantaire disgusts himself sometimes.Apocalypse AU.





	when the straight road splayed

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Barricade Day, folks! Hope y’all enjoy this. I was aiming for moderate angst.
> 
> Content warning for descriptions of graphic injuries, though in fairness it could probably be worse. Thou hast been warned.

Grantaire wishes he could learn how to die properly.

Scavenging is not something foreign to him – he should know how to do his job better, he thinks. He’s lying in the dirt with his hands over his face, red sky overhead, and all he can think about is his own incompetence. Figures.

“Hey! You!”

He ignores the voice, because logically there shouldn’t be any people round here anyway. It’s toxic, a mess of blood and mud and other people’s vices. They are bodies here, and here he is, stealing from them. Grantaire disgusts himself sometimes.

But the voice doesn’t cede to Grantaire’s logic. It keeps shouting. The pain in Grantaire’s leg throbs silently with every minute. He is not only bad at dying, but at everything. He remembers a little more than most about the world _before_ , but that’s all. And who cares about before? He can’t trade these thoughts for others, unless what he’s looking for are stories. And Grantaire already has plenty of those. What’s required of him now is much more concrete, and perhaps in that sense it should be easier to collect: the locations of food, of worthy scavenging locations, perhaps even where to find shelter. He’s a guide, of sorts, if a terrible one. If he gets back alive, at least he can tell them this: the coast here is not safe. The bloodied waters are not safe. They are filled with glass, and shrapnel, and goddamn _mines_ for fuck’s sake. Plagued by generations past.

But he won’t get back alive. He knows that much, at least. Grantaire’s hands move towards the wound, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. The pain is almost unbearable, but he must not draw attention to himself. Perhaps the shouting voice isn’t even addressed at him, but someone else.

(He doesn’t know why he hopes this. He doesn’t know why he hates the idea of hope so much, but he does.)

“Hey,” says the voice, closer now, bizarrely soft, and Grantaire jerks away, struggling in the sand. A hand on his arm. He breathes in sharply, determinedly facing the other way as the voice adds, “Can you stand?”

“Clearly not,” he grits out, and risks a glance sideways to look at the one bending over him. A man about his own age, with tangled blond hair as bright as his skin is dark. There’s a softness to his facial features that Grantaire almost misinterprets for a moment, before he sees the edge of a binder just visible through a rip in the man’s shirt. His face blanches slightly as he glances down at Grantaire’s leg. Grantaire hasn’t looked at it yet himself, but judging from the guy’s expression it’s probably at least as half as bad as it feels. A slow numbness is beginning to spread upwards from his foot, but he can still feel the shrapnel embedded there pretty acutely. He doesn’t know it yet, but that piece alone is as big as his forearm.

“There are more mines,” he says to the man above him, trying not to focus on the eerie symmetry of his face. The man’s eyes are blue, sharp to the point that they remind Grantaire of razor blades, and he tries not to shiver as those same eyes dart in his direction, taking him in. “You should be careful when you go.”

“You’re coming with me,” says the man, with a slight frown on his face that Grantaire can’t quite interpret yet. He slings a fraying backpack from his shoulder, one strap still intact. The pack’s padding has fallen out at the bottom, and the second pocket patched up by pins, but still Grantaire finds himself looking it over with a grudging kind of approval. He’s a scavenger. He knows value when he sees it.

The man lifts a pathetically incomplete first-aid kit out of the pack and sets it down next to Grantaire’s leg in a way that brooks no argument. Not that Grantaire is capable of it. The bottle of mouthwash the man draws out next is enough to bring on a wave of nausea: he knows this is going to hurt.

“Hold still,” says the man, as if he has a choice. Grantaire looks up at the bleeding sky and grits his teeth, trying to will his limbs into non-motion as the man pours a careful capful of mouthwash over his hands. He puts down the bottle and makes to grab hold of the shrapnel. Grantaire very carefully does not look.

His body tries to scream when it’s taken out, but Grantaire’s voice is still too hoarse for it; he can feel sand sticking in his throat, and it makes him cough. His head bangs back against the damp sand of the beach as his limbs try to contract on instinct, reaching for a foetus position that is no longer so instinctive. It doesn’t help. He knows it doesn’t help.

“Done,” says the man, as the white light recedes. Grantaire hears him measure out another capful of mouthwash. “My name is Enjolras, by the way. What’s yours?”

It’s a stunted sentence – both too formal and too casual, Grantaire thinks. The blitheness of it gives away the loneliness. For some reason, this loneliness is greater than Enjolras’ sense of self-preservation. He’s giving away his own medical supplies, for fuck’s sake. Who does that in a world where everyone is now living a hand-to-mouth existence?

Grantaire isn’t capable of that. He hopes Enjolras is aware of it, that he won’t be able to return such a favour in kind.

He grits his teeth and hisses as the mouthwash is poured over the wound. It’s probably the best Enjolras has, so he shouldn’t be ungrateful, but it still hurts. It hurts and it doesn’t matter, not really. The wound is deep and the rest of the shrapnel pieces probably even deeper. He’ll die of infection if not exposure tonight. Enjolras is too late.

 _And yet_ , he thinks. _And yet._

“Grantaire,” he says, because he isn’t a good scavenger, but tired. “My name’s Grantaire.”

“Like the capital?” Enjolras asks, a slight smile in his voice, and Grantaire smiles too, because damn it, it’s been a long time since he’s heard anyone make that joke. He flinches just a little as Enjolras bends over his leg, scalpel in hand, to pick out the rest of the damage done to him by hand. If anything, this hurts even more than the antiseptic. Grantaire bites down again on his lip, tastes copper on his tongue, and immediately stops. Fuck this, he thinks. Fuck everything.

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t know you.”

“You don’t. But I’d like to,” comes the answer, and what can he say to that? _No, sorry, I was expecting Death to come to me today, you’re not welcome._ Or perhaps even _I don’t deserve your help, your easily given love, your loneliness. Don’t come to me with your affections. I can’t handle them._

He doesn’t say this, because Enjolras is holding a scalpel, and in Grantaire’s limited experience one should always be nice to the one holding a scalpel. The way he’s poking around inside Grantaire’s leg suggests he’s not trained, either, but that’s hardly a surprise. None of them are trained for the world they live in now.

Another capful of mouthwash, as painful as the last. A dressing – how has he found this stuff? – and a bandage, neat enough that suggests Enjolras is meticulous if not professional. Perhaps he’s just learnt over time, through practise, or through a friend. It seems prudent to ask, though, so Grantaire doesn’t. He leaps at Enjolras’ touch as the man pulls down what remains of his trouser leg back over the wound. He’s clean. He might even be safe. But Grantaire is not one to trust others, even strangers who carry out good deeds without apparent cause. Obligation is not an excuse. In a world such as theirs, obligation no longer applies. Grantaire can’t think of a singular duty he feels compelled to fulfill, right now, except the ones he is paid for. Apocalypse has rendered him a man of mere functions.

Except, perhaps there is one obligation. A very small one, that shouldn’t in itself be so difficult to fulfill.

The stranger in front of him – for that’s surely what he is, a stranger – deserves a thank you.

Enjolras holds out his hand to him, and Grantaire takes it, moving into a sitting position. He can see Enjolras properly from this point, and although his head still throbs from the impact of the fall and the sand in his throat – hell, all over his _body_ – he can think clearly enough. He’s not addled yet. The end of the world doesn’t faze him, because for Grantaire the end of the world happened a long time ago. It’s why he scavenges: he doesn’t care as much as everyone else, and it shows.

He cares enough, though. Enough for this. Enjolras is very beautiful, and if this were another time, another place, perhaps Grantaire might paint him. But the end of the world doesn’t care about Grantaire’s daydreams. The only thing it’s capable of generating, he thinks, are nightmares. He ducks away from Enjolras’ piercing gaze and tries not to think about how much sadness those eyes contain.

They are kind eyes. Grantaire, for all his imagination, can think of nothing worse than that. Kind eyes in a world full of hate.

“Thank you,” he gets out, because if he doesn’t say it now he never will. “You – what are you doing?”

Enjolras refills his pack, puts it on. Turns to Grantaire, offers another hand, and says, “Come on. Stand up.”

He should question this, Grantaire thinks distantly. But he doesn’t. Blood pumps furiously in his leg as he tries to put weight on it – he’ll be out of commission for a while yet, if he does live. Enjolras wraps a hand around his shoulders, eases his weight onto his. Picks up Grantaire’s pack and holds it gently, like it matters. Like _Grantaire_ matters.

_Come on. Stand up._

He wants to resist. To die slowly and improperly, right there on the sand. But for once, he doesn’t do what he wants. For the first time ever, he does what someone else wants.

He lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment or some kudos if you enjoyed reading! Really makes my day. :)


End file.
